Rough-house...
(begun Wednesday 22nd May at 7.55pm .)


The power went out at five past 6pm, (his remote chirrups immediately, as I settle down here to write), and although somewhat more elaborately contrived than usual, it certainly wasn't due to any sudden fault or theft..  (ah, and Millie's just announced the Dark Dwarf's arrival at my shoulder..).  My ex-CPF Treasurer had called about an hour ago to check if we were also included in  the outage, and she'd said someone had severed the cable outside their's at No. 33, around 4am this morning...
We naturally hadn't felt a thing, as we're no longer on a proper circuit any more, are we Mr. Spence? *winks...
Anyways, she said 'they'd' been round to fix it, but the voltage once restored had been so low that everything kept tripping... (yikes! My teeth are screaming!) and they'd had to call them back later in the day to try again..

My Excellent Neighbour had also called, and she'd mentioned seeing 'them' up the pole outside No. 33 late in the afternoon.. The clincher came when the GameWrecker had walked in five minutes after the lights went out at 6.05pm, to say he'd just driven down the by-road past the sub-station, and the guys were inside working.. What guys?   Why, it certainly sounded like our old friends, Raw Power, no less...  All this convoluted crud just to make a few adjustments and alterations to the monitoring technology, but hey, why not get a decent bit of load-shedding in while you're at it?   How are tonight's changes due to affect us?  Will things be worse if anything? Holy Moly!  You think?

The nonsense had already kicked off in earnest at 4.45opm, when a bunch of hadedas announced the first major change in the airwaves, and Millie had woken with a snarl...
By 4.55pm I was sitting there taking almost non-stop Knives to the Back.. More hadedas, and a few minutes later another major dose of the Knives to the Back.. Clearly there was a whole heap of stuff flying round out there, for at 5.20pm a third lot of feathered sentinels sounded the alarm, and like I said, at 6.05pm the lights were cut, *poof!*...
My Good Neighbour said she'd only had two lights running, plus her television, and that both those lights had 'popped' when the power went out.. WTF? Some sort of surge or spike?  I'd been happily sitting in the dark with just the telly running as I do while the GW's out at the shops, so I'd no idea there'd been a surge at the same time.. Nasty...

One thing that stands out above the rest since the power went off, is the incredible heat inside our house.. All the windows and doors are wide open, and yet the lounge and kitchen felt much like a thirty-degree day in January... Sitting here now in the back room, the temperature had dropped at last, and I'm glad of my socks and warm slippers...
You listening there Allen?  You're paying any attention at all?  After all, you're what our Head of State Security regards as a 'quality' graduate, and I'm sure with a teeny bit of effort you can figure out just what's going on at ours?   Why the constant extreme changes in temperature, why the pins and needles and cramps, and maybe even, why that funnel of wind sometimes hits me as I sit in the bath?
Are we all in this stretch, just a ticking time-bomb, since you so willingly obeyed orders to hand over control of the power supplies to an unqualified criminal?

Come now laddie, you can't bullshit a bullshitter, and although I've come to realise that any dumb Plonker can operate Petruccione's computerised laser 'game', it's not quite the same as mucking about with the electricity feeds... Sure, Balliram may call you on the odd occasion for advice, but for the most part he'll just bloody well take a chance.. After all, we're worthless labrats, and whatever happens, nothing can be proved... Geez, Al, your mum must be SO proud!   *barfs....  Give the Cracker a few basics in EE and say 'you're on your own now kid, have fun?   When you'd known Collin P. Balliram personally for how long?  Long enough to decide he was an honest responsible citizen who was quicker than most at grasping the basics?  Stefanus Roux's 'perfectly safe' assertion has a hollow ring to it, don't you think?

When you add Sentech's killer bouquet of hidden wireless frequencies, and all the unqualified Area Controllers to the mix, it was bound to get messy....  Blam! Blam! Blam! goes my fat old head against a brick wall, and I figure it's time to go climb aboard the Sacrifical Altar and face whatever the Pig has selected to cripple me with tonight....
I'd sat out on the verandah steps in the moonlight, happily sharing an icecream with my four-footed friends, and the candles had made a pretty glow indoors.. I couldn't care less if you cut the power, but I do mind that your actions are leaving murder and mayhem in your wake.. Sleep tight, Mistuh Spence, and may you dream of me in technicolour.... *snarls...

Thursday 23rd May at 5.05am

Knobhead has it so synchronised this morning that I was still reaching for my pen and paper, and had to toss my cardie off instead... Now that's dedication and timing for you... *mops sweat....  I dunno what time they restored the power, and forgot to check.. I did make a note that I'd woken at 2.42am and gone for a pee, and that there'd been no noticable damage done to my person, so I guess that's something... Maybe Balliram was otherwise engaged in trying out the tweaks that Richard and his crew had made under cover of darkness?  I'd seemed to lay awake happily for ages after that.. When Cola had finally been sent through to wake me for the day it was 4.45am, and by then the Pig had the Backfire up and running already.. Hang on a sec... *puts cardigan back on... Ja, the temperature in here has just dropped back down to normal, and the change is remarkable...

My Excellent Neighbour had sounded so poorly on the phone that I'd called Sue the Book later and verified that she too had been barking way more than usual.. As a diabetic it wasn't surprising that No. 10 had been the hardest hit by the Throat Choker frequency.... Interesting to find that the kid at No. 5 woke on either Monday or Tuesday morning to find his back had 'spasmed' in the night, and he'd had to miss his classes...  Would I be going too far to suggest that our Controller had a hand in crippling the lad at such a crucial time?   Only Missus Karma will have that answer, and hopefully she's made a note of it...
I must go and get on.. For all the near daily doom and gloom that I preach, I find I'm oddly light-humoured, and my head is as always filled with questions.. What magic will this new day reveal?

Friday 24th May at 4.50am

Let's have a moment's silence while the Creep does his cookout routine...?  Right, the flames on my face are fading.. How many spheres would I catch in my bedroom in the early hours?  Sure, he can create a colony all on his own, but on the whole I'm inclined to think it's a sphere per visitor on most occasions..
So, does he usher in a stream of rubber-neckers overnight, to come gawp at me as I lie on the Sacrificial Altar?  Does he jab me into wakefulness each time, to wind me up and set me off for the audiences benefit?   How are the other Labrats faring under what appears to be the increased ministrations of the somewhat visibly shrunken Sadist?   The smaller the package, the brighter burns the vitriol, hey Jannie?

No. 17 was well enough to come shopping with me yesterday , and she'd said at some point that her feet had been giving her hell this past week, mostly overnight... Ring a bell?  Did I not write just a few days ago of how my feet were set alight in the dead of night, and how each evening it's generally my feet that announce the increased activity over the airwaves in our house, straight after the hadedas sound the initial alarm?   We all mostly react differently, but as a diabetic I tremble to think of the levels of pain she endures.. No lasting damage Bossy? You think?
That Spooky young lady hadn't returned to her post next to the tree at the Farmer's Market, and I hope she was suitably reimbursed for testing out the latest additions to the technology, last week...
Instead, I'd snapped THIS young man for you, as he chats self-consciously on his cellphone... (you'll have to wait to see those pics). His age and appearance pretty much automatically make him an object of interest, don't you think?

We'd swung up into Garbutt yesterday just after 8am, to find THESE two familiar trees had been hacked down to their stumps, exposing Balliram's brother-in-law's home at No. 6 directly to THIS streetlight by the old bus-stop, that the two cherry picker dudes are fiddling with HERE.... A pole that's no doubt of some importance, as I'd taken a picture the previous week of the cabling sagging near the ground, putting it firmly on the Project's To-do list in the near future...
Never mind the unfortunate suckers in the house on the corner of Harris and Garbutt, are any of Tamara's own family members set to reel under the newly cleared LOS to their home at No. 6, once the link up has been achieved?

Would they dare speak out if cracks began to appear in their own immune systems?  Will any other residents in Garbutt feel the effects of the increased fallout since the removal of those two big trees HERE?  Was it last year or the year before, that a tenant had died inexplicably in an outbuilding at No. 12 Garbutt Road?  Any more such deaths since then?  See, when I constantly refer to my poor Area Controller as a murderous psychopath, I guess you've laughed it off as nothing more than my colourful hyperbole... You keeping count there, Balliram? How many Ooops! moments have you or your cadets had on your sorties across the powerlines? How many corpses, be they human or animal, that you've shrugged off with ease as collateral damage, and something that will never be linked to this inhumane technological experiment?

I discovered early on to my cost, that the fine Specimen at the Chickencoop doesn't have a conscience at all, and that the only things he fears are obscurity and the loss of his Cloak of Respectability.. Something I've an idea Missus Karma will take care of at some point in the future...*fingers crossed firmly...
The power was finally restored on Wednesday night at ten minutes before midnight.. A load-shedding exercise of just under six hours.. No. 33 tells me that just before their power went out for the second time that day, at 6.05pm, all their house lights had suddenly brightened massively...  Put that together with No. 10's two bulbs popping at the same time, and I'd have to say there was some serious dithering going on over at the little sub-station right then...
In the light of this latest corruption, and the games being played with the lives of the Community, involving the powerlines, I spit on your Guptagate and Nkandhla distractions...
Peace..

---oOo---

Friday 24th May 2013 at 11.11am.